CIU Quiz

Last night I played in the North-East heat of the CIU Quiz. It was held at Lemington Social Club in Newcastle and there were around 13 teams competing. It was my first time in the CIU quiz and the hope was to get to qualify for the National Final in September

The quiz involves teams of 4 and I was playing with fellow members of the Sunderland Echo Quiz League. The Gosforth Empire seem to have won this event before, and the National Final itself, so they were the main opposition as well as another team from Sunderland (fellow league members) and a team from Teeside with Brain of Britain Semi-Finalist Clive Dunning (who beat everyone in the room who played against him at the World Championships recently).

The format of the quiz was quite simple, a number of rounds of questions with the sheet handed in after every 10 to allow marking and updates on scores. A picture round of 20 questions (worth 10 points I think), a Who Am I Gamble round and a written round of 10 questions. Plenty to be getting stuck into. That is not to mention the lists round!

It went well in the first round scoring 9 points, only failing to know what county River Cottage is set in. The questions seemed straightforward and even though I certainly did not know them all the experience quizzers in the team gave us a solid start.

Round 2 was the list round....and in one of those quizzing coincidences a subject I had been writing questions about for the app I mentioned earlier in the week came up....Formula 1. We had to list the 9 drivers who had won back to back World Championships. We were given the clue they were not British. Fangio, Ascari, Vettel, Schumacher, Hakkinen came to mind straight away. After some discussion Brabham was added followed by Prost. Alonso took a while to get and after throwing a few names in the hat we settled on Fittipaldi. Only that last answer was wrong (we missed Senna) giving us a score of 8 and putting us right in contention.

The third round was Tv and Film and despite doing some work on Oscar Winners, Jeremy Irons victory escaped me. As did the film in which Robert De Niro plays Jimmy Noodles (despite being given the first letter!...O). I was hoping to do better in this round, only adding one answer which the team didn't suggest, and we managed 6 overall giving us work to do.

Pictures came next and I was glad to see some Eurovision related pictures (these acts score nul points for which country) and two of the team mates took over her and stormed through the round. We failed to identify a gnome painted by Lilly Allen but a very strong round put us in the mix.

It got even better as a strong Sport Round (dragging Zinardi out) saw us creep into second place. By this point we knew we had 3 points lead on the team in 4th meaning we were inching closer to qualification. The printed round was a great team effort and we managed to get the Who am I? on the 2nd clue for 4 points.

It was always going to be close after the way we came storming through the second half and we managed second place on 57 points just behind the winners Gosforth Empire on 58 and just ahead of our fellow friends from Sunderland.

So that means we have qualified for the National Final in September in Derby which I am very much looking forward to! The whole event was a great night, good questions, a great format, a nice venue and a good result for us!